...Why do I subject myself to this? Ugh, here we go again.
So the episode starts off in a pretty confused manner. It starts with the family looking for their car, then noticing the Landlard Donut statue is gone, then they get a new statue, then it destroys the town, and only then does the actual story finally occur. All of this former stuff is filler that isn't exactly funny. There's a thinker joke, but like many of the others in this episode it drags out too long.
Basically, in agreement to fix the town, Mr. Burns puts on a play at the Spingfield Bowl. Apparently he has a dark past when he performed as a child, and he becomes determined to make the perfect show. They show bits of this past, but don't reveal what actually happened until later on. He hires on Lisa as an assistant.
Meanwhile, Homer slacks at the Power Plant with all of his friends. Nothing really happens in this time.
Back to Burns and Lisa, Lisa mentions something about a cannon act being impossible and Mr. Burns ends the show right then. One comment and the show is abruptly over. Lisa goes after Mr. Burns and finds out the truth about how he was embarrassed at the show. She encourages him to start the show again, which he does.
Homer realizes that he has become too lazy and encourages the workers to go back to work.
The show begins with a few various acts. There's one or two cameos with various degrees of interest, but not really much to mention. Then there's a firework joke was actually sort of funny, but they drag it on too long. If she would've said, "Look, fireworks!" then it cut to people running from the plant, then immediately cut back to the show it would've managed itself a little better.
Then Burns gets on stage and there's an accident, resulting in the same thing happening as before. He blames Lisa, everyone disappears, and then suddenly he forgives Lisa once again. She plays her sax for him and Burns sits with Smithers, with one final joke.
So... To clarify, this is better than 'Every Man's Dream', but not by much. The episode is not cohesive and can't manage a story. By the end of it the ending seemed abrupt, because not much actually happened during it. To compare it to a different episode entirely, randomly, let's compare it to... That episode where Homer hires a detective to research Lisa. Just a random episode.
Lisa sees a diary commercial on TV and wants one for her birthday. Homer doesn't get there in time, so he gets her a tape instead that stars her and false information about her. She's distraught that he father doesn't know anything about her and gets angry. To become a better father, Homer hires a detective to get info. It works until the detective reveals a massive bill that Homer doesn't pay. In response, the detective frames Lisa, and she goes with Homer on the run. Eventually she finds out the truth and they are eventually cornered by the detective in a hall of mirrors. Homer reveals that he does remember some things about Lisa, who uses a laser pointer birthday gift to stop the detective. Lisa's proven innocent and Homer's closer with her.
Do you notice the difference? Firstly, there's an actual plot that doesn't bob around everywhere or go in confusing locations. Secondly, it uses what it has; there's a detective so they make jokes on detectives, on bad disguises, on being on the run, and on things that clearly apply to the episode. Mr. Burns' Fleeing Circus doesn't even really make any circus jokes or play around with the material.
Here's another example: One of the jokes is that Mr. Burns remembers everything perfectly. He then remembers his mother licking him like a dog...There's no punch, nothing kooky, nothing to show this is real or not... and they've made this joke before. In the episode where they legalize gambling, Homer says he remembers everything perfectly. He then remembers a clearly wrong scene with Marge having green hair, a lot of wrong people being there, and Homer himself being different. The joke is more precise and thus fits better.
Most jokes drag themselves out. Like a Youtuber doing a Johntron impression, stumbling over their words and restating the same word repeatedly like it's a joke. (Which it's not. It's a purposeful, unfunny stutter.) They continue to restate, add on, and occasionally return to old, failed jokes.
The problem is that the episode really has trouble with pacing. It spends a lot of its time trying to tell jokes, but it doesn't allow itself to set up for them at all, which means that most of the jokes appear suddenly and don't leave an impact. Simpsons, ironically enough, used to be a lot smarter. I guess it's because of its new kid audience that it's been dumbing it down... But kids aren't stupid.
This is just lazy writing. They stitched together a ton of parts in a shoddy ways and couldn't even make it funny. The 'jokes' are notoriously amateur, even for the Simpsons.
Homer's subplot is absolutely pointless. I'm not kidding; there's no reason for Homer even to have a subplot. If they took him out they would've had more time to tweak the main plot. The main plot needed that time too. The two parts that definitely needed more time were when Burns abruptly cancels the show, as it's so quick that it doesn't make much sense, and the ending.
Oh dear, that ending. How cold and emotionless. Simpsons has done emotions before. It has done emotions with Mr. Burns and Lisa before. So to have such an emotionally distant ending is a disgrace. Mr. Burns is embarrassed and mad at Lisa; at this point is when Lisa should do one of three things. She can call him out on his behavior, she can reveal to him how happy the audience is and how they just think it's a routine, or she can just comfort him. The second option seems most viable. Mr. Burns' pride is regained, as he can just say it was a clever performance meant to be funny, he gets over the past event, and Lisa gets off without punishment.
However, what does the episode do instead? It wusses out. Mr. Burns just 'forgets' and suddenly everything is A-Okay. Lisa plays his saxophone while he watches her and then it ends. Not only is this extremely anticlimactic, but is notoriously heartless. It knows it has the ability to do something nice, but instead wastes it. It doesn't even do a more cynical joke; it just gives up. As though the writers are just so bored with the episode that they ended it the quickest way they possibly could.
The only thing I can say positive is that this may have bored and underwhelmed me, but it didn't frustrate me like 'Every Man's Dream' managed to do. I came out of that feeling an actual sense of anger. Here... Underwhelmed, but unoffended. There's no bad morals, there's no shoe horned in characters who are badly written, it's not actually too cliché; it's lazy, but it is harmless enough.
Do I think this means the show is improving? Absolutely not. This is still extremely subpar for a show that's been running this long. It's shows like this that leave people wanting shows to end after a couple of seasons, desperately seeking a quick end so that the show doesn't become a stale monstrosity leeching off of its history, like this does.
I'm actually considering reviewing more episodes to see if they all have the same problem, which I may do, but for now I'll end with this:
Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus is one of the Simpson's weakest opening episodes ever. Considering that it is only slightly more tolerable than last season's, I take this as a bad sign for what's to come.
